The Taliban released a video on Friday of a US soldier captured in Afghanistan, showing him apparently healthy, but spouting criticism about the US military operation.
In Idaho, Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl’s family pleaded on Christmas Day for his release and urged him to “stay strong.”
Bergdahl disappeared on June 30 while based in eastern Afghanistan and is the only known US serviceman in captivity. The Taliban claimed his capture in a video released in mid-July that showed the young Idaho soldier appearing downcast and frightened. He hadn’t been heard from until Friday’s video, in which he looks well and speaks clearly.
Although the video was released on Friday, it was unclear when it was made, and NATO spokesman Colonel Wayne Shanks told the New York Times it was not evidence that Bergdahl is still alive.
He suggested the video may be a pastiche of clips from earlier this year.
“We are not using this as a proof-of-life video,” Shanks told the newspaper. “It’s still to be determined when it was made, but it could have been made even several months ago. It has a lot of editing pieces.”
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force confirmed hours later that the man in the video was Bergdahl, but denounced both its timing and content.
“This is a horrible act which exploits a young soldier, who was clearly compelled to read a prepared statement,” said a statement from US Navy Rear Admiral Gregory Smith, ISAF’s spokesman. “To release this video on Christmas Day is an affront to the deeply concerned family and friends of Bowe Bergdahl, demonstrating contempt for religious traditions and the teachings of Islam.”
Lieutenant Colonel Tim Marsano of the Idaho National Guard issued a statement on Friday from the family of Bergdahl, who live outside Hailey, Idaho.
In their statement, the family urged the captors “to let our only son come home.”
And to their son, the family said: “We love you and we believe in you. Stay strong.”
Marsano met with the family on Friday morning at their home. He said that the family had not seen the video, but had talked to other relatives who had seen it.
In the video, Bergdahl is shown seated, facing the camera, wearing sunglasses and what appears to be a US military helmet and uniform.
On one side of the image, it says: “An American soldier imprisoned by the Mujahideen of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.”
It also shows him eating while wearing garb characteristic of Afghanistan’s Kandahar Province, an area where the Taliban emerged in the 1990s.
In the video, Bergdahl says “It’s our arrogance and, and our stupidity that has made us so blind that we simply refuse to see the blunders and mistakes that we continue to make over and over again.”
“This is just going to be the next Vietnam unless the American people stand up and stop all this nonsense,” he said.
An endangered baby pygmy hippopotamus that shot to social media stardom in Thailand has become a lucrative source of income for her home zoo, quadrupling its ticket sales, the institution said Thursday. Moo Deng, whose name in Thai means “bouncy pork,” has drawn tens of thousands of visitors to Khao Kheow Open Zoo this month. The two-month-old pygmy hippo went viral on TikTok and Instagram for her cheeky antics, inspiring merchandise, memes and even craft tutorials on how to make crocheted or cake-based Moo Dengs at home. A zoo spokesperson said that ticket sales from the start of September to Wednesday reached almost
‘BARBAROUS ACTS’: The captain of the fishing vessel said that people in checkered clothes beat them with iron bars and that he fell unconscious for about an hour Ten Vietnamese fishers were violently robbed in the South China Sea, state media reported yesterday, with an official saying the attackers came from Chinese-flagged vessels. The men were reportedly beaten with iron bars and robbed of thousands of dollars of fish and equipment on Sunday off the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), which Taiwan claims, as do Vietnam, China, Brunei, Malaysia and the Philippines. Vietnamese media did not identify the nationalities of the attackers, but Phung Ba Vuong, an official in central Quang Ngai province, told reporters: “They were Chinese, [the boats had] Chinese flags.” Four of the 10-man Vietnamese crew were rushed
Scientists yesterday announced a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that might provide insight into the brains of other organisms and even people. The research detailed more than 50 million connections between more than 139,000 neurons — brain nerve cells — in the insect, a species whose scientific name is Drosophila melanogaster and is often used in neurobiological studies. The research sought to decipher how brains are wired and the signals underlying healthy brain functions. It could also pave the way for mapping the brains of other species. “You might
PROTESTS: A crowd near Congress waved placards that read: ‘How can we have freedom without education?’ and: ‘No peace for the government’ Argentine President Javier Milei has made good on threats to veto proposed increases to university funding, with the measure made official early yesterday after a day of major student-led protests. Thousands of people joined the demonstration on Wednesday in defense of the country’s public university system — the second large-scale protest in six months on the issue. The law, which would have guaranteed funding for universities, was criticized by Milei, a self-professed “anarcho-capitalist” who came to power vowing to take a figurative chainsaw to public spending to tame chronically high inflation and eliminate the deficit. A huge crowd packed a square outside Congress
RSS